Last year the civic holiday held on the first Monday of August — in various Canadian provinces and territories — fell on Monday, August 2. On the same day the Toronto Star published an article arguing that: “Today is Simcoe Day in Toronto, a holiday named in honour of the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, [...]

To start with, it may seem ironic that the Vancouver Sun (no doubt like other Postmedia News outlets in Canada) has chosen one of “Britain’s leading business and economics commentators” (Jeremy Warner at the right-wing Daily Telegraph) to explain why “America cannot lead the world if it abandons principles.” On closer inspection it is quite [...]

TORONTO. MONDAY, JULY 25, 2011. 3:40 PM ET. The photo that appeared on the Toronto Star website less than an hour ago says a great deal, if not quite everything. As federal New Democrat leader Jack Layton has explained to his fellow New Democrats (in a statement subsequently made public in Toronto this afternoon): “In [...]

Beyond their shared humanity, Elwy Yost, the Canadian former host of the TV Ontario show Saturday Night at the Movies, and Amy Winehouse, the English “singer-songwriter, known for her powerful contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres,” had almost nothing in common — except that they both died during the third full week [...]

TORONTO, CANADA. JULY 21, 2011. My first reaction when the latest and apparently most serious phase of the UK “phone hacking scandal” hit the local press a few weeks ago was: when will the new international management at the Globe and Mail discover that Canada is no longer the first self-governing dominion of the British [...]

“Tell me why this coming Ontario election isn’t going to bore me to death,” a friend? who pays only a respectable citizen’s dutiful attention to politics asked a few weeks ago. And I’ve been trying to come up with a suitable response ever since. Right now, with the headline “Northern Ontario battles 92 wildfires as [...]

You might wonder why today’s Toronto Sun includes “an edited version of a column that originally appeared in the Calgary Sun in 2001” —? by a Stephen Harper who was then merely the? president of the National Citizens’ Coalition. (For the record, it should be noted that the same? “edited version of a column” etc [...]

I have vast respect for Bob Hepburn at the Toronto Star. But I was sceptical about his argument two weeks ago in “Ford honeymoon ends with Pride snub.” Yet by the time former TTC chief general manager Michael Warren reported on “Ford Nation’s grim future” — in the same newspaper just one week ago — [...]

[UPDATED JULY 12, 2011]. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) is apparently abandoning “effort for $4 trillion in deficit reductions … in the face of stiff GOP opposition to any plan that would increase taxes as part of the deal.” But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – Kentucky) has nonetheless declared that “Nobody is [...]

FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2011, 11 AM PT. As reported by the Los Angeles Times: “Prince William and his wife, Catherine … will arrive at Los Angeles International Airport in the late afternoon, where they will be greeted by California Gov. Jerry Brown and his wife, Anne Gust Brown; Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; and the [...]